As published in The Daily Helmsman: http://www.dailyhelmsman.com/news/view.php/857530/Memphis-band-Yet-drop-Strangely-Dim-to-a
Post-hardcore band “Yet.” have accumulated years of playing around Memphis to create “Strangely Dim” an 11-track album mixed and mastered by Clay Crenshaw of What We Do In Secret, who also celebrated a musical release earlier in the semester. Yet celebrated their triumph with an album release show Saturday November 29th which also featured local bands The Star Killers and Forsake Your Nets. “Dim” is available on Bandcamp.com for 5$.
“This really is the culmination of everything we’ve worked on and all the songs we’ve written,” guitarist Nic Griffin said, “We released an EP a little over two years ago it was just a couple songs. This was the first full length we’ve ever released.”
Intro-song “Victor of Aveyron” sets the experience with it’s clean guitar work and hauntingly inventive gain-assisted basslines. Vocalist and brother to Nic Griffin, Jeremy Griffin also debuts his unrelenting scream on the track in the form of the complete lyrics “Oh God!” as the crisply recorded drums charge forward beside soaring, reverby lead guitar parts.
For anyone who has followed Yet. and their shows around venues like The Abbey the past couple years, three tracks including crowd-favorite “Fostered Discontentment,” will seem familiar. Nic Griffin explained the progression of the two-year-old tunes and their place on “Strangely Dim.”
“After playing those songs for years we figured out a few things about how we like to play them, Nic Griffin said, “We play some songs a little faster. They better represent the way we play them live.”
“Fostered Discontentment” also begins to reveal Jeremy Griffin’s lyrical inspiration from bands like Touche’ Amore’ and La Dispute (whom the group has opened up for) as he sarcastically screams ““I’ll grow up smart, I’ll grow up rich; regret my life, forget my kids. One life to live; a life in debt of past regrets and past success.” He refrains to the catchy and yet heavy, “Four years! Four years, I’ve spent in this town! Four years of making you proud!” The vocalist explained the personal truths behind his lyricism.
“When I originally wrote it, it embodied a lot of teenage angst and not knowing what to do with my life during high school. I didn’t really see the purpose of going to school,” Jeremy Griffin said, “Now I’m in my second year of college and I can look back on that song and see the growth that comes from it. While the lyrics haven’t changed the way I approach them has.”
While that song, as well as extra-feelsy “From Underneath,” and final track “The Wanderer Myself” represent updated, higher quality recordings of the band’s past, Yet. prepared plenty of new surprises on this record. Josh Adams from What We Do in Secret lends his high-pitched shrieks to the beginning of eerie, bass-heavy “Clean Cut” with “We’re all cutting our hair now, cleaning up, and growing old. Getting our acts together.” The Star Killers frontwoman Julien Baker doubles her angelic pipes over Jeremy’s rhetorically pleasing lyrics dueting a haunting crescendo featuring lines like “I see myself in the dust that collects at the bottom of closets where skeletons sit” and “I know it’s not easy, I've got to commit. For lackluster living was making me sick.”
“We’ve probably played more shows with The Star Killers than with any other band in Memphis,” Nicolas Griffin said, “From the beginning they have been some of our best friends; they kinda got started right around the same time we got started playing shows. We knew we had to have some sort of feature from The Star Killers on the album and we thought that part lended itself really well.”
Not only did the bands Yet. played with, on the 29th, to promote their new LP hold significance, but the venue space did as well. Guitarist Griffin detailed the importance of East Win Christian Church.
“We played music in the youth group band since early high school, so technically we’ve been playing together for about seven years,” Nicolas Griffin said, “it amazes us sometimes how well we work together as a band. I think we definitely have a good chemistry that’s just been developed over many years of playing together.”
It surely must be the chemistry that allows Griffin and Josh Dunning’s clean-toned guitars to seamlessly wind around each other a la’ Being As An Ocean to craft chill, emotion-evoking pallets ripe for Jeremy Griffin’s lyricism on eleven impressive testaments to Memphis music. Add in the rhythm work of witty bassist Shawn Jenkins and solid skinsman/Facebook booking agent Jeffrey Birkholz and you’ve got Yet. “Strangely Dim” mirrors some of hardcore’s most unique offerings of the past (FOUR) years effectively with pristine production, but vocalist Griffin explained how the moniker of the group came from an unlikely source.
“Switchfoot was the main band that we all liked to go and see when we were younger,” Jeremy Griffin said, “They have a song called ‘Yet’ and we liked the message ‘if things are going bad there’s hope for you yet.”
According to brother Nicolas Griffin the band’s message is one that has resonated well so far.
“My favorite thing to see is people jump up there and scream the words along with Jeremy,” Nicolas Griffin said, “The show was lots of fun probably because of that. Even though the album wasn’t officially released until yesterday, a lot of people already knew a lot of the words on a lot of the songs.”
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